Young Mens Christian Association Of Northwestern Dupage County

Healthy living: the y is committed to improving community health and wellbeing. We bring families together, encourage good health and foster connections through wellness, sports, fun and shared interests. This is especially important as our nation struggles with chronic disease and obesity, families are challenged by work/life balance and individuals search for personal fulfillment. Also, we pride ourselves on the wellness, fun and fellowship opportunities we offer our active older adult population. As members join, we provide them the opportunity for a free fitness consultation and orientation, so they can maximize their time at the y. Our offerings are plentiful and varied to fit our members' individual abilities and preferences, ranging from unstructured family fitness time to family classes to group fitness and specialty classes, water fitness classes and personal training. This year, we estimate that as many as 4,600 individuals of all age groups accessed our healthy living resources. We address chronic disease issues. Our parkinson's program provides critical programmimg for 100 participants. We provide the program free for those inflicted with the disease at a subsdiy to the ymca in excess of 100,000. We partner with local health care providers to target health concerns as part of our evidence-based programming.

Social responsibility: our ymca believes in giving back and supporting our neighbors. We have been listening and responding to our community's most critical social needs since 1919, when our y was founded to fill a void in our surrounding communities to develop healthy mind, body and spirit. As stated above, we provided approximately 31,000/month in financial assistance and scholarships to area youth, adults, seniors and families who need financial support in order to access the y or participate in needed programs such as child care or summer camp. Our child care programs, preschool, and school age and camp programs award financial assistance so that we can reach a wide range of youth and families who are in need of child care. A number of families rely on our child care in order to maintain their employment. We also work with the state of illinois and encourage participants to seek state aid as appropriate. We seek the financial support of the public to help us fund our financial assistance and to keep our fees as low as possible so that all can participate. Our fees for child care average 20-25 percent below the average market fees. We also seek public support to allow us to offer programs so those with chronic disease can participate free of charge. We engage volunteers; this past period more than 100 individuals (a combination of policy and program volunteers) gave of their time and talents to help b.r. Ryall ymca improve our community. In addition to our many programs and child care efforts, the y is a social gathering place for many area seniors.

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